Some days, a fairytale

As I sat daydreaming positively at my desk, I wondered how my search for truth was coming along.

I know, I’ll search for truth on Google!

This turns out to be the worst idea I have had all day: I get “about 57,300,000 results (0.07 seconds)”. Perhaps I need to refine my search?

Anyway, here is the screenshot:

This reminds me of how I used to search the internet for words in context when all that was available were 28 bps modems. Does anyone remember the days when you could only have one Internet page open at any one time? And how you could click on a link, go and make coffee and drink half of it before the page loaded? And then it was the wrong page?

Yes, children, this is all true.

So, let’s summarise page 1 of the results:

We have an advert for God – or thoughts about God. Fair enough.

Wiki is at the top of the pile – again. That never used to be the case.

How come cigarettes are relevant to everything – even truth?

Fourth in line: a dictionary definition. Actually, one of my favourite online dictionaries. The Visual Thesaurus® is on my wish list.

Another favourite: hardware stores, but not relevant to my current search for truth.

I did not know that there was a Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I wonder if it has been published in hard copy? It would make an excellent coffee-table, all on its own, I should think. A coffee-table upon which to stack coffee-table books. :)

And do you remember when you could enclose two words in inverted commas and the search would be for only those two words together, instead of millions of results for anything containing either of the words? Do you remember when you could use the word NOT to exclude a particular catergory in a search? Oh those were the days when searching was easy and far less frustrating – but definately found less results.. And that’s the truth!

Yes, definitely. There are definitely no authorised variant spellings of definitely, even though “kewl” has made it into the Oxford English Dictionary. (Unkewl, in my view). There is also a typographical error contained in “category”.
If Sheila would like, I see I have the power to edit comments.
In this forum, however, I prefer not to mess with other people’s words.

Well, I’ll be horn-bloggled……….the mind bloggles. tRuTh can also be a little bent now and again. It’s all in the way people look at it. One man’s truth is the other man’s fiction (or is that friction?) words, wurds words..ha ha

Google itself tells us that we should only use “Google” as an adjective, as in “I did a Google search”, or as a noun, referring to the entity, the thing, as in “Google is a mega-search engine with no brain”.
That is all very well and good. Most times, however, I mistype and end up with “Goggle”, possibly because this is actually a real English word which existed before Google came along.
I also am one who advances the theory that “google” is better suited to being used as a verb, as in, “I was busy googling for alien zombies when one appeared right before my very eyes.”
All this preamble, dear Grace, to reply to your comment: I still feel well and truly goggled (past participle of v.t. google, as normally typed by me)!

More from Not so serious

Sources of Joy – Days 96 and 97 Perhaps I have been unduly influenced by a curious blend, inter alia∗, of pop psychology, New Age thinking and French literary trends c. 1920–1960. Today’s events on my little planet revolved around the theme of choice, something I expounded upon at length for about a decade straddling… Continue Reading

Rate this:

Sources of Joy – Day 64 The overriding thought today was about the nature of space. I have cleared space in my normal schedule to deal with many things, including the moving of what together constitutes our home from one place to another. I have kept work to the bare minimum – about 20% of… Continue Reading

Rate this:

Sources of Joy – Days 36 and 37 Note: All graphic material on this page is the sole copyright of Toni Le Busque, who so engagingly illustrated my brief but informative memoirs in Scatterling. Seeing as she had so much fun drawing them, I am, as far as I know, the only one who is… Continue Reading

Rate this:

A regular client (agency) sent me 160 words for urgent translation this morning. I opened the document to discover that it was already in English. I sent a quick reply and let her know that even with the best will in the world, translating that short piece into decent German would be impossible for me.… Continue Reading

Rate this:

I was checking online whether my translation from Portuguese into English of a Chinese proverb matched the commonly accepted rendition in English. As one does. I should mention that I do not normally take the answers found at wiki.answers.com as Gospel for obvious reasons, but have occasionally found some useful leads there by way of… Continue Reading

Rate this:

Bitstrip is a new Facebook app which is quite fun to use – provided your good friends also create their own Bitstrip avatar. It proved so popular within the first few days that the program crashed. The app writers were a little ambitious, and have now removed a few of the flexibility features which made… Continue Reading

Personal Links

I do not fight

"I do not fight with my texts. I just manipulate them until I get my way."
Anna Haxen, Danish to English translator

THE TRAINED EYE:
"It takes a trained eye to spot a speck of bullshit on a cow's tail."
jackie plank
(a friend who should write more)

MY ORIGINAL WORK:
Please acknowledge any copying, or reference of any kind to anything on this blog ("That elusive pair of jeans") by providing a link back to www.wrightonthebutton.com or my Twitter handle @wrightbutton. Adding my name on other social media platforms - Allison Wright - won't hurt you either. It is only fair, since I thought all these things up. I will do the same for you.
Thank you.